Remember when I posted about my dining room plans last month? Well, I finally got my husband to trek over to IKEA to check out the furniture I wanted to buy. (He secretly loves going there, I know it.) It turns out that he really had his own definite plans as to what we were […]

I love, love, love October and November. The colors, the weather, the holidays….the food. One of my favorite Fall side dishes is roasted veggies–particularly roasted carrots. (Don’t stem them or boil them, please.) Next time you are in the produce section, look for a bag of Rainbow Carrots. I used to find them all the […]

I just saw these stunning sugar cookies made by Melissa at The Good Apple. I found them via CJane (a daily read) and you have to check them out! The cookies will be sold at the Mindy Gledhill concert to benefit Stephanie and Christian Nielsen.

I usually turn up my nose at biscotti.  It’s never been my favorite cookie.  But as I was looking at the recipe for Lenox Almond Biscotti, I thought of the sliced almonds and almond extract.  I like those. And then I thought about dried apricots. I like those, too. Together they were going to change […]

My father-in-law just had a birthday. I threw together a little dinner for him and of course, there was cake. Knowing he has similar tastes to my husband, I decided to make something with orange marmalade. I altered a recipe in Baking: From My Home To Yours by Dorie Greenspan and it turned out pretty […]

My mom and sisters came to lunch yesterday and for dessert we cut into this sticky, gooey confection called Caramel Peanut-Topped Brownie Cake.  It’s safe to say that all of us came away with a belly ache. Caramel+Peanuts+Brownie Cake=Too Rich Oh, and we ate it with whipped cream and a glass of milk to boot.  […]

Lentil soup sometimes gets a bad wrap. Bad lentil soup can be really bad. And it’s very hard to find a good one. I have made good batches in the past. This recipe was adapted from my trusty The Joy of Cooking. I’ve been making this recipe for months now and it’s the best I’ve […]

In my front yard, off to the side, there is a lovely little plum tree.  Where our house stands now, there used to be an orchard.  Our landlady lives behind us in a new house and we live in the older house that she grew up in.  The yard was filled with fruit trees.  Only […]

I had looked at the recipe, or should I say–picture, for Chocolate Chunkers many times. They looked mighty tasty and mighty chocolaty. I hadn’t actually read the ingredient list until I sat down to make my shopping list on Saturday. HOLY COW. The recipe calls for what is essentially a pound (give or take two […]

One of the great things about moving back to my home state is that I have so much family around. And when you have three cute kids (like I do) you can EASILY persuade your mom and your sister to spend that day at IKEA with you while you look at stuff. Because my budget […]